팀장의 변혁적 리더십이 개인 적응성과에 미치는 영향: 팀 지식공유, 개인 지식획득의 교차수준의 매개관계를 중심으로

In an era of fierce competition, adapting to a changing environment has become an essential condition for survival. In this time of change and innovation, organizations demand that its members adapt effectively to such changes in order to secure a competitive edge. As a rapidly changing environment generates a greater volume of non-regular, non-repetitive work, a greater emphasis has been placed on adaptive performance in modern organizations. Cognitive abilities, personality, self-efficacy, goal-orientation, past job performance, and job expertise have been identified as elements that boost adaptive performance. Given that adaptation can be explained as the difference in knowledge before and after change occurs, knowledge needs to be considered as a predisposing factor affecting adaptive performance. However, relatively little research has been performed on this relationship. This study intends to examine team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition as predisposing factors affecting individual adaptive performance. Since adaptation takes place based on knowledge enhancement under new, challenging circumstances, knowledge activities that affect individual adaptive performance need to be explored. Knowledge activities are processes that require several steps ranging from knowledge acquisition to knowledge exploitation. This research focuses on knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing because they are critical factors in the process of securing core competencies and play a pivotal role in creating and boosting competitive advantage. This research is also based on the assumption that knowledge acquisition takes place mainly at the individual level, while knowledge sharing primarily occurs at the team level, because individuals acquire knowledge, team members share it, and the organization institutionalizes it. This research seeks to examine the transformational leadership of team leaders as a predisposing factor affecting team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition. While transformational leadership, due to factors such as a shared vision, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, increases the number of knowledge activities, existing studies have focused on emotion, motivation and attitudes as factors influenced by transformational leadership. Though previous conceptual research has proposed that transformational leadership enhances team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition, empirical analysis has yet to confirm this. This research assumes that transformational leadership aims to effect change and innovation, two factors derived from knowledge; this leads to the prediction that the transformational leadership of team leaders will have an impact on team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition. This research also assumes that transformational leadership improves individual adaptive performance based on the fact that this leadership boosts not only job satisfaction, organizational immersion, psychological well-being, organizational citizenship behavior, and job performance, but also individual adaptive performance via a shared vision with other team members and the expectations of a strong performance. Existing research has investigated emotive, motivational and attitudinal factors in the relationship between transformational leadership and individual effectiveness. Considering, however, that transformational leadership plays a key role in team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition, and that individual adaptive performance is indicated by the evolution of ability in a dynamic environment, the role of knowledge activities as sophisticated mechanisms in the relationship between team leaders’ transformational leadership and individual adaptive performance needs to be explored. This study collected data from 67 team leaders and 469 action team members. It was found that team knowledge sharing had positive cross-level effect on individual adaptive performance, and individual knowledge acquisition had positive effect on individual adaptive performance. In addition, transformational leadership had a positive effect on team knowledge sharing, and positive cross-level effects on individual knowledge acquisition. Team knowledge sharing had a positive cross-level mediating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and individual adaptive performance; individual knowledge acquisition had a positive cross-level mediating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and individual adaptive performance. This research has the following theoretical implications. First, it is a successful empirical analysis of individual adaptive performance within an action team where adaptive performance is relatively important. This research is academically meaningful in that it empirically analyzed knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing as predisposing factors affecting individual adaptive performance. Since adaptation can be explained as modifications to knowledge after change takes place, knowledge activities need to be explored as probable influences on individual adaptive performance. This research also holds significance in that it has identified a cross-level relationship between team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition, which in turn affects individual adaptive performance. Secondly, this study, through empirical analysis, has successfully identified team leaders’ transformational leadership as a predisposing factor affecting team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition. Third, team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition have been marked as process factors in the relationship between team leaders’ transformation leadership and individual adaptive performance. The practical implications of this study are as follows. First, team leaders in an organization and action teams should encourage team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition in order to enhance the individual adaptive performance of team members. Second, organizations and management need to ensure that action team leaders exercise transformational leadership in order to boost individual adaptive performance. Third, organizations and management should strive to improve transformational leadership with the aim to increase individual adaptive performance, while also formulating and implementing a variety of action plans to promote both knowledge sharing among team members and the acquisition of new knowledge by individual team members. This research has a number of limitations. First, data were collected from action teams in military organizations. In order to determine the generalizability of the results, future research should collect data from teams in for-profit organizations. Second, as the research used questionnaires and was cross-sectional in nature, future research needs to clarify the causal relationships identified in the present study by taking into consideration longitudinal and qualitative data. Third, the empirical analysis of the mediating effect of team knowledge sharing and individual knowledge acquisition was conducted. As knowledge activities consist of a number of stages, the entire process – from knowledge acquisition and digestion to conversion and exploitation – should be considered. Fourth, due to methodological limitations, an empirical analysis of whether individual knowledge acquisition ultimately leads to team knowledge sharing could not be achieved. In order to allow such an analysis, statistical analytical techniques using composition models are required. Lastly, some questions were removed from the factor analysis. In the context of military organizations, a more sophisticated approach should be considered when using questions that have been derived from research into other organizational environments.